What Is Most Important for My Country Is Not Most Important for Me

Abstract

Employing a public opinion survey and a content analysis of local media, this study sets out to examine of the agenda-setting effect in China. China is highlighted in this study because it is a collectivist, socialist nation whose mainstream media is largely controlled by the state. Data from this study reveal that (a) Chinese people make clear distinctions between issues of personal importance (their personal agenda) and issues of national importance (their social agenda) and (b) the agenda-setting function of Chinese media was only observed when considering one's social agenda; the personal agenda was not related with the Chinese media agenda. These findings hold true when comparing across different demographic groups on variables such as age, education, news source, and one's ability to critically analyze news. This article contributes to agenda-setting scholarship by providing empirical evidence of agenda-setting effects in a political and media structure substantially different from the Western structures usually examined in such research.

How citizen journalists impact the agendas of traditional media and the government policymaking process in China

“…When examining agenda-setting effects in China, scholars have tended to choose case studies and interpret online public opinions based on observations or analytical argumentation (Y. Jiang, 2014; Luo, 2013; Zhang, Shao, & Bowman, 2012). However, every case has its own special characteristics, making it potentially ungeneralizable to other cases.…”

Perceived Agenda-Setting Effects: Factors Impacting Awareness of Media Influence

“…China has seldom had empirical agenda-setting examinations, though agenda-setting theory was introduced into China in the 1980s (ZHANG, SHAO, & Bowman, 2012), soon after the reform and opening-up policy. Since the early 1990s, it has been accepted with a great deal of enthusiasm, mainly because this theory fits the communist perception of the role of the media and its emphasis on the media's influence in guiding public opinion, which is linked to effective propaganda and public opinion steering (HE, 2009).…”

“…PERCEIVED AGENDA-SETTING EFFECTS 539 But many Chinese scholars confused agenda-setting with agenda-building and they mainly interpreted agendas from the media perspective, but rarely correlated the media's agenda with the audience's agenda. The only existing national empirical agenda-setting examination in China was conducted in 2000 (ZHANG et al, 2012), by comparing the media content analysis and public polls.…”

“…The relatively low socioeconomic status of Chinese may have direct and indirect impacts on the agenda-effects in China. The collectivism-oriented culture calls for individual sacrifice to the nation, which results in the divergence of personal agendas and the national agenda, that is, what is the most important for the country is not the most important to individuals (Zhang et al, 2012). Therefore, in an authoritarian country such as China, the agenda-setting effects are assumed to be low because of the lack of relevance of media among the public, also because agenda-setting effects occur "wherever there is a reasonably free and open media and political system" (McCombs, 2013, pp.…”

Development consensus in the Internet context: penetration, freedom, and participation in 38 countries

“…A homogenized, shared traditional culture promotes interpersonal trust and collective actions (Inglehart, 1997;Smith, 2000Smith, , 2005Turner et al, 1987). Individual choices tend to be consistent with the cultural values of communities that they belong to, and individuals who follow similar values are likely to hold similar attitudes towards social issues as well as take similar actions (Huntington, 1993(Huntington, , 1996Zhang et al, 2012). In this study, mass media, postmaterialism, and traditional culture were adopted to predict public consensus on development.…”